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Fakes & Frauds"Trailer Hitch" Fluorite: Faked?

19th Oct 2020 03:58 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

The fluorite shown below is spherical and seamlessly flows into a matrix of the same material. Short of instrumental analysis it certainly seems to be fluorite. At first glance, I would assume this has been formed from massive material by some machining process. However, other than saw marks on the base, I find no tool marks, broken crystals, etc. which might suggest grinding, etc. Perhaps it's etched some how? The given locality is De'ann Mine. It came from a Chinese dealer at a southern California show a few years ago, who had perhaps five total like this. (As I recall one or two had multiple balls on larger matrix, but all were of the same brown material.) All of the other inventory I saw with this dealer was accurately labeled, and no other fakes were evident. (When I saw this oddball I just had to **thoroughly** inspect the inventory for other hidden treasures or fakes. Found none of either.)

So my question is: Faked (and if so, how? No tool marks...)? Or if this is natural have other examples been found? I am familiar with spherical Indian fluorites, but the Indian material is more fine grained. Perhaps the longwave fluorescence shown in the last photo is a clue that I am missing.

19th Oct 2020 03:58 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Backlit.

19th Oct 2020 03:58 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Backlit.

19th Oct 2020 03:59 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

19th Oct 2020 04:00 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Another view.

19th Oct 2020 04:02 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Fluorescence under longwave UV. Note banding.

19th Oct 2020 05:08 UTCRuss Rizzo Expert

Edit: The UV photo wasn't displaying earlier.

The banding suggests a layered structure. In the non UV photos I see what appear to be lamellae which suggests to me that maybe it's not fake. This is coming from someone who is naturally skeptical of Chinese minerals.

19th Oct 2020 08:06 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Could have been etched (after carving?) in some way to produce this globular morphology, but I wouldn't exclude a natural formation.

19th Oct 2020 08:21 UTCKeith Compton 🌟 Manager

Looks more natural than some of the Indian fluorites I've seen 'cos some of them have been ground smooth.

19th Oct 2020 08:23 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Seems to have been deposited in layers. Has anyone ever seen a natural sphere composed of flat layers? Spheroidal minerals are normally internally either concentric or radial. How would Nature make a sphere composed of flat layers? Doesn't that raise serious suspicions?

As for the removal of saw marks or grinding marks by etching, fluorite is easily etched by leaving it in running water for a while. Collectors normally think of fluorite as being not soluble in water, and just spending a few minutes washing it will not result in noticeable damage, but in reality it is slightly soluble in water, 16 milligrams per liter at room temperature, so leaving it in running water for a couple days removes a noticeable amount from the surface.

19th Oct 2020 09:20 UTCRuss Rizzo Expert

Alfredo,

Good point about the orientation of the laminae. Learned something...

Russ

2nd Nov 2020 02:14 UTCDoug Daniels

After seeing the UV photo, I had kinda the same thoughts as Alfredo. It grew as a layered form, how it got to the spherical form is a good question.

19th Oct 2020 08:49 UTCFrank K. Mazdab 🌟 Manager

If there's no evidence of carving or subsequent etching, presumably it also could have been sand-blasted (artificially) to that shape.

19th Oct 2020 09:24 UTCRuss Rizzo Expert

Wouldn't sand-blasting cause at least some incipient fractures?

19th Oct 2020 12:15 UTCJosé Zendrera 🌟 Manager

Would say it is carved and acid etched.

Like this Chinese fluorite pyritohedron artifact:

19th Oct 2020 14:13 UTCPeter Slootweg 🌟

Absolute fake for the reasons Alfredo mentioned.

19th Oct 2020 14:25 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

Thanks for the replies. I will shift my opinion from 'highly skeptical' to 'definitely faked'.

19th Oct 2020 14:49 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Good that you thought of doing the fluorescence photo showing the clear banding, Steve - That's what moved me from the skeptical camp to the definitely faked.

19th Oct 2020 20:02 UTCGary Morse

This is reminiscent of the "Fake fluorite out of China" reported by https://www.fakeminerals.com/ in February 2010.

19th Oct 2020 21:43 UTCKevin Conroy Manager

John had a collection of fakes. His knowledge of these is missed, as is he.

19th Oct 2020 22:28 UTCJosé Zendrera 🌟 Manager

Ten years later the trick is still running! If you look for "Spherical fluorite from Indonesia" in ebay will find many of these artifacts selled from China.

1st Nov 2020 19:11 UTCJohn Fingas

The discussion seems like an open & shut case at this point (i.e. the fluorite is fake). However, I think it should be mentioned that x-cutting banding IS possible in spheroidal
specimens, one example being concretions in sediments, wherein bedding is preserved and 'overprinted' by the concretionary mineral (metamorphic poikiloblasts would be another). A few things point to that not being the case here. 1) I've never seen fluorite concretions or porphyoblasts (... but maybe they could exist). 2) The nature of the banding shown in the UV (rhythmic graded banding) seems most consistent with a open-growth hydrothermal texture, and not very consistent with relict sedimentary or metamorphic banding. 3) If you look at the plain-light pictures, you can see sort of ovals (... 'double-pointed ovals'... think Jesus-fish shape) on the edges of the sphere (traced in white/pale colour). That appearance is due to fibers of fluorite which have grown perpendicular to the banding, that's why the edges of the sphere are sort of striated, while the top of the sphere is 'stippled'. Even if the banding were relict sediment banding, the growth fibers for a spheroid should be radial or... at least reflect the spherical nature of growth in some way. The double-pointed oval form seen here reflects the fibers being cut during the shaping (grinding, sand-blasting, whatever) process. You can see the same thing on the fakes pointed out by John Veevaert and Jose Zendrera as well.

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